The advent of computers and the Internet has changed profoundly the way that information and services are provided. Now consumers can have instantaneous access to information with a click of a mouse and can make a purchase without leaving their house. For example, a consumer can read the latest news from a newspaper's web site or check his stock portfolio at a web site of a financial institution. The number of people accessing the information and obtaining services through the Internet is increasing daily, and this represents a new market for all merchants of information and services.
This new electronic market represents a new opportunity and a new challenge to all merchants. Now the merchants can reach consumers who they would not have been able to reach, but at the same time new business models need to be developed to overcome new obstacles associated with the new opportunity. One of the obstacles is to overcome consumer's reluctance to adopt the new technology and to use the new electronic market. Traditionally, consumers have the opportunity to check a product or to ask salespersons questions before purchasing a product or service. Computers and the Internet do not readily provide this opportunity. The consumers have to rely mainly on the service or product description and the merchant's trustworthiness when purchasing the service or product. If the service or product description is accurate and matches the consumer's expectation, the consumer will most likely be satisfied with the purchase. If the description is not accurate or the product fails to meet the consumer's expectation, the consumer will be at the mercy of the merchant when the consumer tries to obtain a refund.
One example of consumers needing to take a risk is many sites require consumers to pay a subscription fee to access the sites. Consumers may not really know what information or services are available until the consumers pay the fee. Many consumers do not want to pay any fee until they see exactly what comes with a subscription. To provide consumer with more knowledge, many sites offer access to a guest's portion of the site, which has a subset of all information or services available through a full subscription. While this additional insight is helpful, consumers are typically still faced with not knowing the entire range of services or information available with full membership.
Some free service providers grant temporary full access to their web sites, and the full access granted is generally limited to a short duration. These sites generally require users to provide some personal information to become members, but the membership is free. A membership has a short duration, and the users' login information and access privilege are removed after a short time period. A user can gain unlimited access by providing different identification information. The approach adopted by these web sites is to force the users to register, and they are not concerned in distinguishing between information or services offered to guests versus what is offered to paying members.